Memories of the Past
by MerlinspantsitsHP
Summary: She never meant to fall in love, but she did...She fell in love with her best friend and the ex-preator. He loved her the first time he saw her and helped her fight away her demons, as she did for him. Will they ever tell each other their feelings? PB


A/N: Sry about my other fic, I lost chapter two and it is now being rewritten. This is a Paine/Baralai fan fiction that should last about five chapters or six. It's mostly fluff but without much further ado here is chapter one, Memories of the Past.

But before that a random quote: Diogenes No man is hurt but by himself.

Paine's POV

I stood watching all the happy couples around me. We were all standing in the cabin of the airship, Yuna got her dream back and was now sitting in his lap with his arm secured around her, and she practically glowed with happiness. You could tell why she loved him so much, he's a nice guy and he loved Yuna, it's like it glowed off him.

There is also Rikku and Gippal who had finally, for the relief of all the Gullwings and all the others that now sat in the room, admitted their love to each other. They still have their petty fights but make up within moments.

There is also the very strange and slightly disturbing, Brother and Nhadala who is much like he was when he was in "love" with Yuna. Quit sick really, of any one going out with Brother but whatever flies their machina.

I am happy for Buddy who was sitting with a nice Al Bhed girl that he has known since childhood; first love prevails joyously once more.

Then sitting on the couch is our Noojie Woojie and LeBlanc being herself more or less and letting everything hang out.

Even our little Shinra had found him someone, they matched in wits and were quit fun to watch when they got an idea started.

The one that hurts the most is Baralia with his new found interest in one of LeBlanc's Syndicate members and seems quit content to have her in his lap laid all over him.

It feels as if someone's picked up a chisel and started at my heart but found the wrong place to hit as my heart cracks and crumbles into a weeping heap. It kills my soul to know that he will never be mine. To know that I am alone while the rest of them have someone to love or maybe not love, but someone to hold and feel. I have no family, my so-called friends too involved in themselves to notice me, and all I do have is a broken heart and my sword.

I feel suffocated in this room and cannot take another second in the room with all those happy couples, for out of all those people in that room I feel utterly and completely alone.

So finally with one last glance at the room I walk to the door, no one is disturbed by my departure their activities continue. I can't take anymore of wishing that it were I in Baralai's and not that little syndicate tramp. Though, I know I am wishing on a fading star like we all did as children. I want to escape from the pain and the loneliness, yet the ironic thing is I want and need to be alone.

So coming to the decision to head to the deck, that is where I have found peace many times before. I feel numb in a way. I feel nothing. I want to die; much like Nooj once wanted to. I now am the Deathseeker. I want to end my life and all the pain that I have held inside since I was a child. Since my family had died, my mother and two brothers died at the hands of Sin and my father...by his own hands, I guess it runs in the family. I was left all alone to deal with the destruction that was dealt at me. I grew up but I had to.

The door to the deck finally opens as I step towards it and immediately I feel the cold wind blow almost through me like ice. I take no notice and walk slowly to the front where I sit on the edge, a little too close to the edge. Falling back into my thoughts about my relationship with Baralai.

In the days of the Crimson Squad he was my confidant. You couldn't really talk to Gippal, he was always talking about Cid's girl and Nooj, and well it was like talking to a rock most of the time. So Baralai and I were left to talk amongst ourselves, and that was fine with us. We had a way to make each other open up and talk, we found each other good company on the sleepless nights that he and I spent together, and those nights were often as sleep evaded us or our nightmares came. Nightmares of the past of seeing our parents die. So instead of trying to suffer, we settled on wakefulness with each other. We talked late into the night watching the stars glitter in each other's eyes.

I slowly found myself falling in love with my silver haired, chocolate-eyed soft-spoken companion. If I was ever asked if I had a best friend before Yuna and Rikku I would have to say Baralai. He was my confidant through the year in the Crimson Squad. He was there for me when the tears poured from the nightmares; he is the only person alive to have seen me cry. He would always know when the nightmares came, or hear my crying, and he would be there as soon as I sat up. He would pull me into his strong yet gentle arms with my head tucked under his, my head buried in his chest soaking his wife beater. He would sit there rocking me back and forth rubbing gentle, comforting circles on my back while he muttered small comforting words to me.

So our friendship grew, and my love grew, with each passing day as I learned more about him. That time, only weeks ago, when we had to fight him to get to the Bevelle Underground. It broke my heart the way that he had looked at me when we beat him as he lay there. I remember my heart breaking with each stroke I had to take at him. Then when Shu-yin took over his body to run Vegnagun I thought that I wouldn't be able to hold it together to beat him no matter what. I remember everything in grave detail because of the pain that it caused and the fact that it is still fresh, the pain.

I wish the memories of me and Baralai together would be reality once more...like the time that I had a particularly bad nightmare yet this one was different than the others. It was near the end of the Crimson Squad, and Baralai was at my side pulling him into his arms letting me cry on his shoulder, soaking the light shirt he wore. I held him to me sobbing, the images of the nightmare still vivid in my mind. He stroked my hair and rubbed my back, I was just happy that he was there to hold me. When my sobs had stopped and he tried to pull back I wouldn't let him go. Finally in a soft whisper he asked, "Tell me about your dream?" I shook my head no against his chest. "Please", he pleaded. Tears crawled down my face once more as I shook my head no again as the horrific image of my nightmare came back to me.

Then slowly as if the words were a waterfall from my mouth the words poured, "It was so, so real." "I-I was walking down Mushroom Rock Road. It-It was d-dark and hard to see I-I looked out in front of me and saw this lump on the ground, so I ran to it. It was-It was you and..." I had to stop as the image of him, lying on the ground barely breathing with blood covering him came back. More tears came out with a sob. He rubbed my back in small comforting circles and I finally found my voice to continue, "You-You had been shot and was barely alive. I dr-dropped to my knees, you opened your eyes and saw me then you tried to smile. I grabbed your hand as I cried. You had already given up and there was no way to get help, which was when I realized you would die and I would be alone again. Then, I started to call your name that is why I called out..."

He pulled me to him tighter and I buried my head deeper. "I'm-I'm sorry to have awoken you again with my nightmares." He simply pulled me closer and I relaxed in his arms. I slowly began to drift off asleep, but felt him start to lay me down. I quickly tightened my arms around him and semi-pleaded, "Please stay, please don't leave me stay tonight." He slightly hesitated, I thought he would refuse, but he lay back on the small bed and pulled me with him. I lay my head on his chest above his heart and my arm curled around him. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled the covers over us then that arm joined the other. We drifted off to sleep and both slept perfectly for the rest of the night.

I haven't slept that well since that night, never making it a whole night without a nightmare. To think about his arms wrapped around me makes my heart ache. That brings me back to the reason why I'm sitting alone, dangerously close to the edge of the airship on the deck, and freezing in the wind. Then I realized, as I finally felt a burning/tingling sensation coming from my arms, that I had become so distraught with my pain that I had started to scratch greedily at the naked flesh of my arms. I looked down to see what I had seen many times before after my pain or anger or loneliness became too much for me to bear; I take it out upon myself. It's a way to deal and no one ever knew about my habits, even Baralai didn't and doesn't know. And old habits die hard. There have been times when that has been the only thing to make me feel alive, the only thing to remind me to breathe, to want to live.

Though I would love to so simply slide off the side of the airship and end my pain there, so before I did what I wish to do I stand carefully back up. I walk towards the elevator and step in.


End file.
